The Slatest

A List of the Conservatives Who Are Holding the Line and Still Refusing to Support Trump

Trump speaks on Tuesday night in New York.

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Donald Trump is going to be the GOP’s presidential nominee, and many of the conservative and/or Republican figures who’d promised they would never, ever vote for Trump in the general election have already started to reconsider their definition of the word never. But not everyone is selling out! Here’s a surely-only-partial list:

Free Beacon writer Lachlan Markay burned his Republican registration.

The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein—who wrote a book called Overcoming Obamacare, for God’s sake—is also giving up the ghost.

As Slate noted earlier, Red State blogger Ben Howe and former John McCain staffer Mark Salter are already declaring their grudging support for Hillary Clinton. (Former Red State honcho Erick Erickson isn’t going to support Clinton but says he’ll quit the Republican Party when/if Trump officially becomes its nominee.)

Meghan McCain promised to keep a list of all the conservatives who go wobbly.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse made clear that his earlier announcement about never backing Trump (or Hillary Clinton) still holds.

Fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham didn’t quite explicitly say he wouldn’t get behind Trump, but he did say Trump will lose.

The Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein compared Trump’s victory-speech comment about Cruz to his earlier insane endorsement of a conspiracy theory about Cruz’s father in taking the laugh-so-you-don’t-cry approach.

Same with Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake.

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard and Fox News reiterated his anti-Trump beliefs. 

Former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro—who resigned when the site’s management refused to support reporter Michelle Fields in her dispute with Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski—is holding the line.

So is former Jeb! spokesman Tim Miller.

And even former Bush administration spokesman Ari Fleischer—one of the least principled and least honest people in the history of human civilization—has had enough.

Just kidding. Ari Fleischer would flack for Saddam Hussein’s corpse if he saw a dollar in it. But kudos to the rest of these people for having the courage of their convictions!

This post has been updated with additional information.

Read more Slate coverage of the GOP primary.